AJ is still in pain, her eyes, her soul, everything. Mike hugs her through the night after Smackdown ended and he had been able to return to the hotel. "Sweetheart," he whispers, kissing the side of her head. "You can go home, you know. I still need to fly back to Fort Benning for Tribute to the Troops, but John can pick you up from the airport, take you to the house... I'll be home-"
"No, no," she demands almost immediately, tangling her fingers in his shirt and burying her face in his chest. "I don't want to go without you, Mike."
He sighs, holding her close. "Ok, sweetheart. Alright. We'll get a flight as soon as I'm done with Tribute to the Troops tomorrow." He kisses her nose and stares into her face as she slowly relaxes against him, comfortable in his promise. Her eyes look better, clearer, not as red or swollen, but he has to wonder if perhaps this is a recurrence of when she'd escaped to Canada with him after first losing the divas belt. If she's going to have trouble returning to the ring because of those nasty Bellas... He winces and slips down, pressing his lips to hers in a soft, careful kiss that leaves her sighing into his mouth.
It's agony leaving her, has been for the last two nights, but he has no real choice. The troops deserve something, especially from the star of Marine 3 and 4, so he makes sure AJ is comfortable in their new hotel room after the flight to the fort, leans in to kiss her once more and heads out to spend another day visiting with the troops and then putting on the actual event for them. He doesn't have a match, but that's ok. He interrupts Hogan's blathering and is talking up his movies when Cena dares to interrupt him. He seethes from the ring as Cena talks, and talks, and talks, and talks...but when things get physical, he quickly finds himself deposited on the outside of the ring, forced to watch as Sandow beats himself up and then throws himself out of the ring next to Miz. Angry and disgusted, he gets up to his feet and storms out of the base, relieved to find his car and head back for the hotel, annoyed that his time with the troops had been turned into some laughing stock by John Cena, of course.
AJ is asleep when he returns, and his face softens as he settles in next to her, his cool skin making her shiver a bit. "Sorry, sweetheart," he whispers, leaning down to kiss her cheek. She mumbles in her sleep before snuggling further into him, whispering faintly. "I bet you're looking forward to returning home to California... where it's nice and warm, and we can sit on the beach for hours..."
"Yes," Mizdow suddenly speaks up, seeming a bit startled when Miz stares up at him, a disbelieving look on his face. He quickly turns back to his things and grabs what he needs to get ready for bed, ducking into the bathroom.
Miz rolls his eyes before laughing faintly and cuddling closer to his wife. "We're gonna be ok, sweetheart, no matter what..."
-x
After a few days spent relaxing in California (he even catches an episode of Lucha Underground, as aggravated as John is when he fails to win a battle royal with implications towards a match to determine the Lucha Underground champion in the new year), Miz has to fly back out for Raw, planning on going straight to Florida for Christmas at Del Rio's as soon as it's over. He cups AJ's face when she wakes up and smiles sleepily at him, searching her eyes. They'd cleared even more, AJ careful to wear an eyepatch when on the beach just to ensure that sand or whatever else wouldn't get into her eyes and make things even worse. "What do you think, sweetheart?" he asks quietly. "Are you going to fly out with me to Raw, or do you want to just go on ahead to Florida?"
She mulls it over for a few minutes as he kisses her softly, lips trailing from her mouth to her lids, careful and gentle while he lingers over her face. "If you don't mind, I think I'm going to go to Florida." She cups his face and kisses him back, smiling faintly. "I'll miss you."
He sighs and strokes hair out of her eyes, searching her face. "I'll miss you too, sweetheart, but I know Sofia will take good care of you until I get there. Try to have some fun, alright? Or at least get some rest." He presses his lips against her neck and she shivers, nodding into his chest.
"I'll try," she hums, content to remain pressed tight against him until they have to leave or risk missing their flights. Once they arrive at the airport, he stands with her outside of her gate, kissing her softly as she stands on her tippytoes to reach him better, sighing into his mouth. "I love you."
"I love you too," he murmurs, running his fingers teasingly over her lips. "See you first thing tomorrow." She nods, leaning up to give him another kiss, before walking towards the line leading to her flight, glancing over her shoulder at him once more. He smiles and blows a kiss at her, ignoring Mizdow doing the same to thin air, gritting his teeth when people shoot the man next to him strange looks.
They arrive at Raw a few hours later and Miz walks purposely through the halls, determined to make it through this evening as quickly as possible so he could go back to the airport and travel out to begin the holidays in style with his friends. But first he pauses at the match board, reading it. He frowns and pauses, looking it over once more. Natalya has a match against Brie Bella, but Naomi is stuck in some six divas tag match with Alicia and Paige. He stares at it, shaking his head in disbelief. After her match against Nikki falling apart because of her husband, Mike had hoped Naomi would get another chance tonight, something... anything to give him a chance at upholding his promise to AJ. "Dammit."
When he sees Alicia a little later, the diva looking anxious when she spots him, he indulges her and slows to a stop so she can approach him, looking cute in her red and white Christmas outfit. He wonders what AJ would've worn, if anything special, a smile flitting about his lips before forcing himself to focus on Alicia's questions. "How is AJ doing? She's still going to be able to make it to Christmas at Del Rio's, right?"
"Yeah, definitely," he nods. "She's already in Florida, actually. When I flew out for Raw, she was on her way there. She's doing better, as for her eyes. Just needed a little more time to recover, you know. Thanks for asking." He's glad that AJ still has at least one friend in the business beyond him, she needs all of the support she can get, and Alicia had been one of her closest friends, especially around the time of the wedding. "You and Alex are going to be there, right? And you won't kill Paige?"
She smirks, her eyes twinkling mischievously. "Now why would I even be tempted to do that, Mike?" She grins at him, patting his arm. "See you later." Waving gleefully, she runs off for the tag match, his eyes trailing after her.
"Oh boy," he mumbles, turning in the other direction to handle his own business. He has another singles match against Jey Uso, relieved that even Ho Ho Hogan seems smart enough to realize that putting him in the ring alone with Jimmy Uso would put his moneymaker in unneeded danger. Not that it keeps them separated entirely with the angered, jealous twin at ringside, watching on in annoyance as he wrestles Jey, Damien continuing his stunt double duties outside of the ring. Finally, Mike's opportunity comes and he takes it, rolling Jey up into a pin while using his tights for leverage. Far from clean, true, but necessary, he decides as he makes his way back up the ramp, laughing the entire way. Especially if he was going to make it to Florida for Christmas in one piece.
He hums, finding his phone where he'd left it in the locker room, once more checking Mizdow to make sure he hadn't run off with anyone else's phone. Sometimes I'm not sure if he's a stunt double or a toddler, Mike thinks, remembering how mortifying it had been when the new assistant had come up to him, looking for Ziggler's phone, just for the both of them to realize that Mizdow was using it to mimic Mike while he was on the phone with his agent. He sighs and shakes his head with a mirthless smile, scrolling through the various texts he'd received, hesitating over AJ's. "Oh," he mumbles. "Great..." Looking up at Mizdow, he grimaces. "Ricardo has a stomach bug, apparently. Poor guy, that sucks this close to Christmas. And he has a match this weekend too... hopefully he'll get over it soon."
Between AJ's eye injury, and now Ricardo being under the weather, Mike's not sure how to feel about this Christmas, but he's still eager to have all of his friends under one roof, the madness and fun times that comes from that, so he tries to keep an optimistic thought in his head as he makes his way through the airport the next morning, Alicia, Paige, Alex and Mizdow following after him, all eager to get this flight out of the way so they can begin to properly enjoy the holiday.
When they walk into the main part of the airport upon landing in Florida, they're not that surprised to be greeted by AJ, who runs right into Mike's arms, but they are surprised by who's next to her. "Tamina!" Mike exclaims, looking the tall woman up and down as he holds onto his wife. "Long time no see, how're things?"
"On track," she says simply, meaning her recovery. "Good to see you all." Her piercing gaze rests on each of them in turn and, to his credit, Alex doesn't waver this time.
In fact, he smiles at her. "Nice to see you, Tamina."
She takes in how his arm is wrapped loosely around Alicia's body and nods slowly, understanding dawning in her eyes. "Nice to see you, Alex."
As they all walk towards the exit, Mike leans in to stare at his wife until she locks eyes with him, smiling slightly. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine," she whispers. "Better than Ricardo, anyway."
Mike winces, rubbing her lower back with his thumb. "He's still sick, huh? Geez, what terrible timing for that... Well, I'm sure Sofia will find a way to make sure he gets something good to eat the next couple of days." AJ nods, leaning against him as they walk out into the warm Florida weather, his eyes brightening as he takes in the gorgeous blue sky overhead. "Now this is more like it," he chuckles. As he leans in to kiss the top of her head, she smiles up at him affectionately, squeezing his side in agreement.
A/N: For those interested in the Christmas party chapter, it'll be up this weekend under Encontrar una Manera. Merry Christmas!